Desert Blossoms
by WindsAcrossThePlains
Summary: Alone after the war, Soren mulls over a tempting offer.


It had been foolish of him to get so close, to grow used to having someone else, to have a _friend,_ as the humans thought of it.

And now Ike was gone, without so much of a goodbye and - Soren hadn't realized it would hurt so much. It wasn't like he'd had anyone to talk to before he met Ike, anyways.

He thought Ike had cared. He thought that Ike had always said he would fight for his friends, that the Mercenaries were his family. Oh, of course Soren knew how empty the word _family_ was, his own family had abandoned him since before he knew how to talk.

But didn't Ike always tell him it didn't matter where Soren came from or what his parents did, didn't Ike always say those things about accepting everyone for who they were?

 _Words are easier said than believed in,_ a little voice in the back of his head reminded him. _Ike might say these things to you, but has he ever understood you? For all those born with nothing… the ones who are born with everything can never fathom what they have gone through. You're just a burden for him to comfort, nothing more._

Soren shivered, but it wasn't from the flakes of snow blowing in through the cracks of their fort. Five years and two wars, and in the end…

 _You should be grateful he cared about you at all,_ the voice continued. _But now that he's the Radiant Hero and the paragon of virtue how can he associate with you?_

 _I'm just a silly Branded who's not going to magically get along with the laguz who mistreated and ignored me for so long. He thinks everything can be fixed just by telling people not to hate each other!_

 _...he's probably right. I'm not good enough for him and I've never been. It just took him this long to realize it in that thick head of his._

The door flew open and Mist charged into the room, plateful of food in her hands.

"Soren!" she yelled. "I've been looking for you all over. You weren't at dinner." Mist held out the food to him.

Curse that insufferably energetic girl. "I'm not hungry."

"Come on, you have to eat something."

"Fine," he muttered, waving towards the counter as a signal for her to set the food down and leave him alone.

"Soren, what's wrong?" Mist pressed on. "You can't just mope around forever now that Ike's gone."

"Ike was a good friend," Soren mumbled under his breath, emphasizing the _was_.

"You still have us," Mist continued. "We're all your friends, aren't we?"

Curse her and all her enthusiasm and sunshine. Someone like Mist could never understand how much he craved the connection he had - _thought he had_ \- with Ike. Mist got along with everyone and never had trouble being happy.

"Yeah!" Rolf burst into the room. _Dear Ashera not another one of them._ "You're the best tactician the Greil Mercenaries could ever ask for!"

Soren turned, glaring at the moss-headed boy. "So that's all I am to you? I'm worth making friends with because you think I'm _useful._ Good to know that."

"What, that's not what I meant - " Rolf blurted, but Soren had spun on his heel and was gone.

They probably _did_ think that of him, after all, regardless of what Rolf claimed he meant or didn't mean. His mother had abandoned him. The sage only cared for him because he thought he could train him to be a powerful magic user. Ike - Ike _had_ cared, at least, when he was young and innocent and had yet to realize the curse Soren had been born with, when they were just traveling mercenaries and not young adults tasked with the continuance of all of Tellius. The others - he didn't know whether he could trust them, whether they would so much as glance at him if it weren't for habit and familiarity.

He would never serve as tactician for anyone other than Ike again, he decided. There wasn't a point to staying here, with the other mercenaries. He wasn't about to turn into a burden on them, and one day he would outstay their welcome too.

Soren packed lightly and set off, the snow-covered grass crunching faintly under his footsteps. _You shouldn't try to find Ike,_ the voice in his head said again. _Ike doesn't want to deal with you anymore. Why else would he abandon you?_ He pictured Ike greeting him with the tip of Ragnell.

 _Stefan would welcome you into his desert colony, you know. You should go there, be with people like you._ It was a true statement, but it sent another bout of shivers down Soren's spine.

 _I don't belong there either. I can't make myself be as open as Stefan, not when I've spent so long trying to pass as a beorc. What's the use of hiding away in the desert when everyone else in Tellius will still hate me for my blood? What good is it to pretend all I need is to accept that I'm Branded when it doesn't make any practical difference what I think of myself?_

 _Stefan thinks I've sold out to the beorc, but I don't know any other way of living. He's right. I don't belong anywhere. Not with the laguz, not with the beorc, not even with the Branded._

 _Still… maybe it's worth a try._


End file.
